


Retrograde

by orphan_account



Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016)
Genre: Fluff and Angst, M/M, Non-Linear Narrative, Potential Spoilers, listen if ------- is dying i'm taking all of us with him sorry, mostly angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-15
Updated: 2016-12-15
Packaged: 2018-09-08 17:50:45
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,685
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8855101
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: Two hands stretch out into the pitch black of creation, pulled into each others' orbits around a singular point of origin and broken apart just as suddenly. Reaching, grasping, slipping, falling, one catches on religion, the other on his first contract.They meet again somewhere in the middle.





	

He finds Chirrut outside. 

“Nice night for stargazing?” Chirrut asks wryly because he knows it isn’t, it’s ten below and the air is always filled with smoke and the next patrol comes in twelve minutes and Baze wants so badly to dote, to tell him to come back to bed, we’ve been sleeping outside for so long, it’s too early, you’re going to freeze. Instead he drags his fears back inside to collect dust in some far corner and returns to his partner’s side with instant caf and a tentative smile. 

“May I have some?”

“Mm. It’s for you.”

The mug passes between them and Chirrut’s fingers linger on his own in gratitude, in trust, in love. The lines begin to fade after so many years.

“I'm leaving tomorrow."

"I know."

"I'll be back by sundown."

"I know."

"Just try to avoid any unwanted attention.” (Don’t kill anyone while I’m gone)

"Alright." (No promises.)

Baze sighs. That's as good as he's going to get. They fall back into a comfortable silence, albeit temporarily.

"Baze?"

"Yes?"

"May the force be with you."

He bites down on a laugh and rolls his eyes as Chirrut chuckles softly beside him. "Insufferable." 

“You’re smiling.”

“No I’m not,” Baze doesn’t know why he bothers, lips twitching around the words even as they leave his mouth. Chirrut can always tell. “Finish your caf.”

 

—

 

And then Andor comes back, suddenly needs them for more than just domestic reconnaissance. He brings a ship. The Empire brings something much bigger.

That’s when everything really goes to shit.

 

—

 

This is how it starts: When a two stars of similar mass and gravitational pull find themselves caught in each other’s orbits, they begin to revolve around a common barycenter. They move in ellipses, drifting further apart at times only to return to return closer to the center, closer to one another. Never overtaking one another, but always staying close by.

His first memory of Chirrut is a spiritual debate with a blind young man on some side street of a city he knew in another life. 

His second is returning every day for nearly a week until he finds him in order to apologize. An offer, a reconciliation, to make up for his rude behavior. Dinner? Dinner. A hesitant acceptance. (He might have overdone it just a bit.)

His third bleeds subtly into the rest, decades’ worth of moments spent together, nearly indistinguishable yet all equally invaluable. Eventually Baze stops remembering those milestones like their first kiss or their first confessions. They don’t have need for anniversaries, grand declarations, or insecurities any more than they have time for them. Just this is enough. To love is enough.

 

—

 

There was once a point in Baze’s life when he would have willingly, entirely free of charge, gladly, even, gouged the eyes out of the next person who said the words “strong, silent type” in his presence with nothing but his bare thumbs and a momentary lapse in judgment.

The way his clients said it made him into a machine, built for a single purpose and built damn well for it. His targets, if they lived long enough to open their mouthes and got close enough to see him, said it like he was some kind if animal. If it was a choice between one and the other (it always had been), he would take flesh and blood over cold, hard steel any day.

Chirrut had been different like that, somehow, from the moment they met. He saw him for who he was, not what he was, or why. Baze had thought for too long that he was the only one.

Shopping with Chirrut in that old village’s marketplace for the first time, Baze realized he could be something more. He still remembers every detail of that day. It was cold, as usual. Cold-and-dry was the only lasting trademark of their black hole days, the ones forever lost to those otherwise indistinguishable motions of life, those mindless repetitions. Miserable, maybe, but ever reliable. That day was better than most, though, because that was the day that exports came in from the capital city. Fruits, vegetables, tea and spices of all shapes, colors, and uses. “Come with me this time,” Chirrut had told him, “I want you to meet someone.” 

The woman at the counter (he never did remember her name) looked him up and down while Chirrut compared the relative weight of two oranges behind them. “Oh! So you must be the Baze that Chirrut’s told me so much about, hm,” she asked, or stated, because despite all of that motherly kindness she spoke like a steamroller and if it was ever a question to begin with, Baze didn’t expect she was waiting on an answer. He nodded in response anyway, just to be polite.

“Strong silent type, huh?” Baze could hardly hide his wince before she continued on, waiting for the inevitably disparaging second half to that statement. “I like that. Good for Chirrut. I trust you’re taking good care of him?”

And suddenly he was a living, breathing human in the eyes of creation and all the world. She didn’t even know what she had done for him. “Yes. Always.”

After that, Baze was content to stand back in the late afternoon sun and watch as Chirrut made polite conversation with her, idly tracing the wood grain of the stall’s counter and picking something up every once in a while to put in the basket. It was nearly sundown when they finally exchanged their last few credits of the week for that month’s groceries and began to walk back home. 

“Wait a moment, Baze,” Chirrut said, weighing the basket in his hands and turning back to the woman. “Excuse me, I think you gave me more oranges than I paid for by mistake.”

“Tch, nothing gets past you, does it? It’s my treat, dear. I don’t make mistakes. Only decisions.”

“No, we couldn’t–”

“You know I won’t take no for an answer. Quit your protesting and repay me by getting home safe. I insist.”

Chirrut turned back towards him, waiting, and Baze squeezed his wrist in affirmation. It felt wrong, that much they agreed on. That woman looked like she would benefit from more than a few extra credits, but she was insisting, and Chirrut’s wrist had felt so stick-thin beneath his fingers it was hard to pass up an offer like that. They would pay her back tenfold when they were able. Unconvinced but reassured, Chirrut faced her once again. “Thank you for your kindness. May the Force be with you.”

“And you as well. You keep that man of yours out of trouble now.”

“Of course.”

Baze had to bring a hand up to hide his smile.

Out of earshot, Chirrut nudged him and murmured, “did you hear that, Baze? Perhaps I should keep a closer watch on you from now on.”

They laughed through the long walk home.

That was nearly ten years ago. Now the woman is gone, the market is gone, the village is gone. And nobody calls Baze anything anymore, because they care too much about how to keep their families alive to notice one more big man with a big gun and a steady gait striding around the city. He can’t say he blames them. He’s only trying to do the same.

 

—

 

His very first job isn’t much of a story. Seventeen and set adrift in a world of society’s failed experiments with a blaster he hardly knows how to use and everything to prove. He receives the information, finds a position at the top of some adjacent building, and shoots the man in the head. Clean kill. It’s over in under three hours.

When he returns for his credits and the man puts a hand on his shoulder and says, “you’ve got a natural talent for this sort of thing, son.” Then he tells him to take pride in his work and Baze can feel his heart trying to rip itself apart beneath his chest. He chalks it up to nerves and moves on to the next client.

 

—

 

His current job, his final job, has neither fixed title nor steady pay. Assassin turned rebel turned guide-follower-friend-lover-protector- _equal_ and the shift comes so naturally it feels less like an evolution and more like moving in retrograde, closer to his own beginning, only to loop back around and begin the cycle all over again. 

 

—

 

Baze is a simple man. He enjoys simple pleasures, strives towards simple goals, and has two very simple fears. Losing Chirrut. Losing hope. Always in that order, because if the former ever occurs, the latter is almost certain to follow. 

He’s never actually lost Chirrut, of course, but every once in a while he has dreams.

It’s never the shock that wakes him up; there is no sudden gasp, no eyes shooting open and throwing the sheets off the bed, no clear line drawn between dream and reality. Sometimes he doesn’t even remember the event itself. It’s that feeling in his chest, beneath his ribs, slowly pressing further down, crushing his organs. He lays there in silence, trying to remember how to fill his lungs with air, waiting to come back into himself.

“–right here, Baze. Breathe. Look at me. I’m right here.”

“I’m fine. I’m fine.” Still half-conscious and nearly oblivious to his surroundings, he repeats it once more for good measure before realizing that Chirrut really is right in front of him. He knew that already, somewhere in the back of his mind, but the relief upon seeing him with his own eyes is almost tangible. The hand on his back helps. Of course it does. He knows what he’s doing. He’s done it before.

“Anything you need, Baze. I’m here.”

If he anchors Chirrut, keeps him rooted to the ground, Chirrut is the only thing keeping him from slipping beneath the surface.

“Tell me something,” Baze says once he can breathe again.

“Like what?”

“I don’t know. Something good.”

“Of course. Anything you need.” 

 

—

 

This is how it ends: a blaster bolt to the gut. No one around to see it happen. ( _The force did protect me._ ) Baze finds him hours afterwards. ( _I_ _protected you._ ) Hours too late. Even minutes might not have been enough.

( _I go where he goes._ ) Only this time he couldn’t move a muscle.

 

—

 

This is how it really starts: survival of the fittest, driving rifts in relationships before they even have time to begin.

His first memory of Chirrut isn’t truly of Chirrut at all, not the one he knows now; a small boy cries silently, doubled over in the dust, and Baze wants to hate him for it. They’ve all felt that chill to the bone when the sun sets. They’ve all forgotten the taste of their last meal, the sound of running water, the touch of a well-meaning hand. They’re all scraping by.

But then Baze clears his throat and the boy turns around. He’s gripping the hand of someone lying in the street behind him, fingers dancing across the bloodless skin as if in search of a pulse point. 

And he’s blind.

Baze follows the boy for weeks afterwards, dropping stolen ration bars at while he kneels outside the gates of the temple. He probably thinks his guardian angel is some guardian from the other side of the gate. Baze thinks it’s pretty stupid praying to something that doesn’t even know you’re there. But in a few more days the boy is gone, and where Baze imagined he’d feel smug, he only feels hollowed out. He puts a hand on his heart without really knowing why and doesn’t wonder where the boy is now, because he never asks questions he doesn’t want to know the answer to.

Not that it matters, because in fourty years, thirty, twenty, even ten, neither of them will remember.

 

—

 

“Do you ever wonder if it was a mistake,” Baze asks one day because he isn’t one for could have, would have, should have’s, but it’s eating away at him and they’re getting older by the second, who knows how long they have left, “waiting so long to leave?”

(One more week became just one more month became a two-year lease on an apartment in the village, they’ll build a house out there beyond the wastes once they have the money for it and he should have known, he should have known he was never getting off that planet again, but they were too caught up in it all to notice the warning signs.)

“I don’t make mistakes. Only decisions.” 

It takes Baze a moment to piece together why that sounds so familiar, but once he does, he lets out a single, soundless laugh, and spares him any and all remarks about deflecting. “You remember that day.” 

“Of course.” When Chirrut smiles, he can’t help but return it twice over. “You never did manage to keep me out of trouble, did you?”

(He doesn’t know if he ever could have, always holding out for the future, and oh, he wishes, hopes, wants so much it hurts, but—) “No. Never.”

 

—

 

They burn the body apart from the others. In the traditional way. The jedi way. Everything he would have wanted. (But he’s dead, he’s dead, _he’s dead_ , and he can’t _think_ anything and it’s all ruined, everything built and everything planned is crumbling around this moment in space and time, around the  ~~six~~   ~~ five ~~ four of them, this can’t possibly be how the story ends.)

Baze can’t bring himself to thank them for it. 

 

—

 

A voice in his head says, _heal_ , and he tries. 

_It will take as many years as you have to spare, and then a hundred more, but it will happen, whether you want it to or not._

And he tries, he tries, he tries. (He can’t.) _He will._

 

—

 

Baze wakes to find Chirrut’s hand in his hair and a gentle smile on his face, and for a moment believe’s he’s still dreaming. 

“What are you doing up,” Baze mumbles, or thinks he does, but it comes out sounding a lot more like “Mmmf.”

Then he really opens his eyes, because he isn’t dreaming, because they’re lying there awake when they enough time for another hour of sleep before they had to keep moving again, because Chirrut’s acting odd and he wants to know why.

“Don’t cut your hair,” Chirrut says suddenly, absurdly, looking like peace incarnate lying there beside him.

“I… wasn’t planning on it.”

Chirrut offers nothing in explanation for his strange behavior. He only runs his hand along Baze’s scalp once more, head in the crook of his arm, eyes still closed. 

“What? What are you smiling for?”

“I don’t know, my dear, why do people usually smile?” And blast it if Baze can’t just feel the sarcasm dripping under his serene exterior. He would reach up and cuff the smug tone from his voice in a second if he only had the energy to lift himself off the bed.

“Oh, don’t look at me like that. I’m simply happy to be here.”

“Here,” Baze deadpans, pushing himself up on his elbows. “Really.”

He’s only teasing, but Chirrut sobers suddenly, peering up in Baze’s direction with a kind of sudden diffidence that he hasn’t seen since they were young.

“Are you?”

“Hm?”

“Are you happy?”

“Yes,” Baze says, no hesitation. He only stops to consider his answer afterwards. Even with the understanding that it would never be a total lie, not when they were together, he is surprised to find it to be nothing but the truth. He is happy, here, back in the rough-and-tumble slums of his childhood, laying in some dead stranger’s bed, with the stale, frozen air blowing dust in through boarded-up windows. Here in this house, in this city, on this moon, but also _here_. Still alive. Well-fed. Well-rested. More present in the moment than he’s felt in weeks. He takes Chirrut’s wandering hand in one of his own and presses it to his heart in more than just muscle memory.

“I am.”

**Author's Note:**

> ~~i can't believe my fathers chirrut îmwe and baze malbus singlehandedly saved 2016 with the healing power of healthy mutually dependent marital love~~
> 
> happy US Rogue One premier, everyone! hope you all enjoyed it! you can find me on tumblr at [imwve](http://imwve.tumblr.com).


End file.
